


Mirror Image

by nataliaket



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Body Image, Burns, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Scars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-08
Updated: 2016-07-08
Packaged: 2018-07-22 07:31:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7425742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nataliaket/pseuds/nataliaket
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The image staring back from the mirror is a mockery of the one he's trying not to expect anymore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mirror Image

The first time in a long year that Shiro gets the chance to take a long look at himself in the mirror he has to bit his lip and fight down the urge to break the image staring back at him.

They'd all been given rooms in the castle and it's as he's pulling off his sweaty Paladin uniform on his way into the attached bathroom that he sees the reflective surface. Pausing, he hesitates. His memories of the last year are still mostly a jumbled blur in his head and he comes to the realization that he's no longer entirely sure what he looks like anymore. He's felt the long scar covering the bridge of his nose and felt that he definitely needs a hair cut, but now he wonders whose face would stare back at him from the mirror. Would he even recognize his own face at this point?

He barely recognizes his own body when he looks down at it. Changing into different clothes after Keith and the others had rescued him had been an exercise in fighting down the bile that rose in his throat as he tried to remember where the patchwork of new scars and burns had come from and what injuries he had even sustained. At the time, he'd angrily pulled the shirt on and thanked his blessings for long sleeves, even though they did nothing to hide the replacement for his arm. Compartmentalize it and move on, he'd thought at the time. There had been bigger things to worry about at that moment that had required his attention more than getting worked up over his physical state. He had just ignored his mental state.

He hesitates for another second before slowly moving in front of the mirror. As he does he fights down the urge to shatter the face of the person staring back at him. Instead he carefully raises a hand, his _real_ hand, to trace the features reflected back from the glass. The person staring back at him is so much older than he remembers, though he thinks that maybe that's fitting since he feels like he's aged decades in what everyone has told him has only been a year. He's haggard and tired and he knows that it's not just a result of the whirlwind of the last few days. 

He pulls his hand back from the glass and watches as his reflection slowly traces the scar across his face, feeling the rough, puckered tissue under his fingertips. He slowly moves to the shock of white hair that's been falling into his eyes for the last few days. A surge of anger moves through him and he clenches his fists at his sides as he looks at himself and tries, tries so hard to just remember.

_Something! Remember anything!_

He hates that he has no answers to the questions that everyone has. He hates that he's left with all of these remnants of what the last year has done to him physically and yet he has nothing, no memories to balance them out with anywhere in his mind. There are scars that he remembers, that he knows existed before the Kerberos mission. The scars from days in the training room, the ones that everyone gets from just living life. But then, as he slowly unclenches his hands and really looks at himself, at what he's become and what he has to live with now he tries to comes to terms with the new additions. This is his body and his life now. This is the Shiro that exists now, whoever he was before is gone and he knows that there is no way to get him back, but he desperately wants to right at that moment.

Slowly, he spreads his hand across his chest, staring at the large slash marks that mar much of his upper body. They look almost like claw marks to him and he gingerly moves his fingers over them, as if the claws that made them would reappear to strike at him again. He winces as though he remembers the pain anew. Shutting his eyes, he shakes his head and moves his gaze down. He notices what looks like the trailing edge of a burn over his right hip for the first time and frowns as he follows its spread up his side and sees it spread towards his back and down his hip onto his thigh. He moves his hand along it and then feels the parts of his back he can reach confirming what he thought he would find there.

Breathing slowly he rotates and looks over his shoulder, biting back a cry as he looks at the wreckage of his back. The twisted and red skin spreading out from his right side and covering a large portion of his back. His eyes trail over it all, trying to come to terms with it and fight down his horror at the same time. He doesn't let himself linger long on the sight for too long before his eyes follow the burn to its end point where his flesh and bone arm ends.

Inevitably, this leads him to the part that he's been trying to ignore the entire time. The part of him that he hasn't been able to ignore even from the start. The arm. Why did he even have it? Had he lost it in whatever attack had caused this spreading burn on his back? He wonders if he'll ever know. All he does know is that he has a deep feeling of hatred toward the artificial limb and he can't figure out why. Gingerly he touches the place where the metal connects to his flesh and grimaces, clenching his artificial fist. The metal is always cold under his touch and he finds himself hating the divide between the person he had been and the person he has to come to terms with now. All the limb was to him was further proof that there really was no going back to the person he'd been a year ago.

Gripping his prosthetic, he turns away from the mirror. There was nothing there for him, he decides. Stripping the rest of the way he makes his way into the shower stall and cranks it up as hot as it lets him. He feels himself sink to the floor and lets the water wash over him as he tries to sort out his train of thought. Sinking his head into his hands, he lets himself release the shake he's been holding in the entire time. He knows, somewhere in the back of his mind, that he has to pull himself back together before he falls apart completely. He can't think of himself in this, he has a duty to his team, to the entire universe. But right at that moment he just needs some time to fall apart and breathe through the flashes of memory that had started to crop up since Allura had mentioned the name Zarkon. It was never anything tangible though, it was flashes of feeling and color. Fear, anger, confusion, but nothing that he could latch onto and try to piece together. No lifeline, nothing. He was alone and adrift in the confusion and frenzy of his mind and he felt himself falling further and further into a spiral. 

Slowly, he finds his way up and unwinds himself from the mental and physical paralysis. He moves cautiously onto his still trembling legs and moves slowly but as quickly as he dares through the actual action of getting himself clean. As he turns the water off, he leans his head against the wall and tries to breath deep. He has a team that's depending on him and he knows then he can't let them see him like this. Everything was so tenuous right now between them and he had to hold them together, had to get them to bond as a team.

Focusing on his breathing and just walking he makes his way back into his room, gently picking up his discarded armor pieces and placing them on the desk. He focuses on putting on his old clothes and not looking too closely at his bare skin, trying to numb himself and his reactions.

He'll get there slowly, he knew. He just wasn't sure if there was enough time for it.


End file.
